Women’s Cultural Centre Frankfurt am Main

In Frankfurt am Main, the association Frauenkulturinitiative e. V. (Women’s Culture Initiative) came together in 1984 within a milieu of around 60 women’s projects; from 1986 its activists, organised in the Frauenkulturhaus project group, drew up plans for a cultural centre for the art and culture of women.¹² In 1991 the first sections of the Frauenkulturhaus Frankfurt am Main (Women’s Cultural Centre Frankfurt am Main) opened in the Hausen district of the city as a centre for communication, creativity, exhibitions and performance.³

History and founding

During the founding phase of autonomous women’s projects from the mid-1970s onwards, alongside women’s, health and therapy centres, protective and educational facilities for young women and girls and on through employment, self-help and housing projects, a large number of feminist projects also emerged in the cultural field. The activists’ shared, overarching political aim was to create self-determined and self-organised spaces and to establish a feminist public sphere that would do justice to the differing interests, needs and identities of women. In urban areas above all, women’s educational institutions, women’s magazines and publishing houses, women’s book distributors and bookshops subsequently developed, making feminist theory, gender research and literature from the new women’s movement accessible and disseminating them.⁴

Art and media projects increasingly addressed feminist subject matter, the reception of works by women, and the training and working conditions of women artists. The critique formulated by the new women’s movement of gender-specific disadvantages and restrictions affecting women led to a sustained socio-political debate about the position of women in the art world, the art market and the cultural economy as well. Although over-represented in artistic and cultural studies programmes, the proportion of women as producers, cultural mediators and cultural scholars in the established professional and employment fields (university, museum, art academy, jury appointments and the awarding of prizes, exhibitions and the like) was markedly under-represented. With the aim of achieving equal opportunities for women across the cultural sectors, various initiatives, organisations and institutions with feminist working concepts and in cooperation with municipal cultural policy emerged nationwide from the late 1980s onwards.⁵⁶ The first women’s cultural centre, which still exists today, was founded in Stuttgart in 1978.⁷⁸

In a setting of around 60 women’s projects, the association Frauenkulturinitiative e. V. was formed in Frankfurt am Main in 1984; it later also acted as the sponsoring association of the Frauenkulturhaus.

In the Frauenkulturhaus project group, which was at work from 1986, the activists joined forces with women from the Frauenerwerbslosenzentrum (Centre for Unemployed Women), the Internationales Frauenzentrum e. V. (International Women’s Centre), the women’s urban planning group and a women’s painting group. The initiative’s shared goal was to devise and build up an institutional cultural centre for the art and culture of women.⁹¹⁰

The plan was for a place of communication, production and presentation for professional and semi-professional visual artists, musicians, women writers, film and video makers, theatre and dance practitioners, museum professionals, and for audiences in the city with an interest in art and culture. A museum, a gallery, workshops and studios for artists and craftswomen as well as seminar, rehearsal and event rooms were to be integrated into the cultural centre. The Frauenkulturhaus was to provide the infrastructure for the regional, national and international networking of women artists and women working in culture.¹¹¹²

In the presentation area, gallery exhibitions on both historical and contemporary themes were to be shown; the museum strand was abandoned as early as the planning phase in favour of a theatre area. The planners took as their starting point the concept of the expanded notion of art formulated above all by Joseph Beuys, according to which life, work and social conditions – here those of women – are incorporated into artistic and aesthetic practice. With this holistic approach, and in contrast to established museum and gallery formats, the Frauenkulturhaus was to offer low-threshold exhibitions with a broad thematic range, without falling back on traditional attributions of femininity (household, needlework, mysticism, matriarchy and the like). Both presentation formats were to be open to works in the artistic media of painting, photography, video, sculpture, literature, song, theatre and dance.¹³

The initiative’s meeting place consisted of rented premises at Egenolffstrasse 5a.¹⁴

Location of the Frauenkulturhaus in Frankfurt am Main at Industriehof 7–9
Foto: Karin Kraus

With the support of the first red-green coalition in the Frankfurt city executive and of the women’s department set up in 1989 (head of department Margarethe Nimsch and office director Renate Krauß-Pötz), the association was able to rent a former industrial hall in the Frankfurt district of Hausen in 1990. The building, with around 1,100 square metres of usable floor space, was converted and renovated in line with the conception of the various areas of work. The Frauenkulturhaus opened in part in 1991 and was fully realised in 1993.¹⁵

The project comprised workshops and production areas for popular and classical music, dance, film, video, theatre and the visual arts, as well as event, seminar and exhibition rooms plus several offices and a central café.

Areas of work and programmes

The organisers of the Frauenkulturhaus realised an extensive, cross-genre programme of events and exhibitions with both one-off and recurring formats such as Ladies Matinees, an artists’ regulars’ table, a women’s disco, the Damensalon/women’s pub, as well as the workshops Frauen-Spiel-Lust, Kreativer Tanz (led by Brigitte Weh) and Von wegen!Ruhe!Äktschen! (led by Sargam E. Frahsek).

Regular dates and one-off events were published in programme announcements appearing every two months; exhibitions and individual events were publicised through media work and separate flyers.

The recurring programmes were reserved exclusively for women, while all other events were addressed to, and were also attended by, the culturally interested public of the region irrespective of gender.

In 1992 the board member Brigitte Schäfer presented the Frauenkulturhaus – until then unique nationwide in its overall conception – at the symposium Stadt – Kultur der Stadt. The event, attended by cultural practitioners from across the country, took place at the Club Voltaire in Tübingen.¹⁶¹⁷

Exhibition and event programme in the visual arts (selection)

1993: Six young women artists from the twin city of Leipzig presented the exhibition Ortswechsel. A catalogue with original prints by Adda Geiling, Mechthild Mansel, Katrin Kunert, Caroline Kober, Daniela Hussel and Ulrike Dornis was published to accompany the exhibition.¹⁸ As a joint production, the artists Joanna Jones and Barbara Heinisch realised the installation Back to Back at the Frauenkulturhaus.¹⁹
1994: A retrospective at the turn of the year showed artistic works from the first 18 months of the gallery’s activity. The documentation served to build up an archive of women artists and their works for the region. The exhibition Bestandsaufnahme featured works by Brigitte Binzer, Barbara Feuerbach, Cäcilia Gernand, Insa Härtel, Dagmar Heinrich, Ursula Hillmann, Nicola Jaeggli, Joanna Jones, Birgit Kiupel, Brigitte Kottwitz, Edith Monschauer, Petra Straß and Farangis Yegane. The accompanying publication was funded by the Hessian Ministry of Science and the Arts (HMWK).²⁰ The exhibition Dienen, Beruf und Berufung. Frauen in der Werbung (curatorial board Irene Ewinkel, Ulla Merle) was mounted on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Deutscher Verband berufstätiger Frauen (German Association of Professional Women).²¹ The autumn conference of the Deutscher Verband berufstätiger Frauen (DVBF, since 1998 Business and Professional Women Germany e. V.) took place as part of the exhibition. The central theme of the event was the role of women as objects and as agents in the advertising industry.²²
1995–1996: As the gallery programme developed further, artistic positions were selected according to thematic focuses. The following artists were represented in solo exhibitions, which were always selling exhibitions as well: Photography and other media series: Anita Engel (photography), Monika Heckner (photography, video);²³ Artistic avant-garde before and after the Second World War series: Experimentelle Fotoarbeiten 1950–1975 Marta Hoepffner und Irm Schoffers,²⁴ Gerda Taro. Fotoreporterin im Spanischen Bürgerkrieg. Photography, film document, book presentation by Irme Schaber,²⁵ accompanying lecture by Linda Hentschel: Zaunkönig mit der Kamera. Kriegsfotografien von Lee Miller;²⁶ Site-specific installations and objects series: Mirta Domacinovic (clothing objects, photography, drawing), Christiana Protto (photography, wall painting, drawing).²⁷²⁸ In cooperation with the cultural centre of the twin city of Birmingham, an exhibition of the British artists Una Rose Smith, Jacquie Swift, Jane Alderson, Kim Merrington and Dawn Ashman was staged.²⁹
1997/1998: Taking over a production of the Verborgenes Museum, Berlin, the Frauenkulturhaus showed the touring exhibition Atelier Lotte Jacobi Berlin – New York.³⁰ The exhibition Zwischen den Spiegeln, with photography by Ursula Hillmann on the women artists of the Frauenkulturhaus 1993–1998, was the last presentation before the house closed at the end of March 1998.³¹

Professionalisation and networking of women artists and women working in culture

In 1995 the Künstlerinnenbüro (Women Artists’ Office) opened at the Frauenkulturhaus. The office’s main themes and tasks were the networking of women artists, women organisers and women’s cultural projects, the building of an archive holding material by and about women artists, and cultural-policy committee work to improve the situation of women working in culture, among other things through quotas in the awarding of prizes. This area of work was temporarily financed by the Hessian Ministry of Science and the Arts.³²

In 1996 the Künstlerinnenbüro organised a professionalisation seminar for women visual artists on the fundamentals of copyright, exhibition and usage rights.³³³⁴

Dance theatre, music, cabaret (selection)

In these genres too the Frauenkulturhaus functioned as a space for production and presentation. By renting out rehearsal rooms to freelance musicians, directors, cabaret artists and the like, new groupings and cooperations also developed in the performing arts and music at regional and international level:

1990: Founding and continuing rehearsal venue of the women’s choir Dissonante Tanten under the direction of Viola Engelbrecht.³⁵ The women’s theatre group Traumzeit, with the director and cabaret artist Gisela Erler, rehearsed at the Frauenkulturhaus for a long period.³⁶
1991: among the events held at the Frauenkulturhaus were the European festival for improvised music Canaille, initiated by the Feminist Improvising Group, a first exhibition by the artists’ group k`IN entitled Kunst Herrenlos, and fringe programmes for the Musikmesse and Stage Art in Frankfurt am Main. In addition, regular events such as women’s discos, film evenings and Sunday matinees were already on offer.
1994: the US women’s band When Girls Collide presented a new album. The concert took place in cooperation with the LAG der Kulturinitiativen und soziokulturellen Zentren in Hessen e. V. (LAKS).
1995: The Dutch theatre group Lesbians United showed a production of the Lesbian Love Theatre.³⁷ Founding and continuing rehearsal venue of the women’s and lesbians’ choir Choralle under the direction of Hanna Klein.³⁸
1996: At the AmateurTheaterTage, pieces by the ensembles DieWas (directed by Brigitte Kucharzweski), Theater unter dem Regenbogen (authors Julia Willis, Anne M. Harris, Pam Cady, Lesley Newman) and alles ginger (directed by Brigitte Weth) were performed.³⁹
1997: the Theaterhof Priessenthal, directed by Martin Lüttge, showed Szenen aus dem Leben der Anna Maria Sibylla Merian.⁴⁰

Cabaret artists such as Lioba Albus, Cornelia Niemann, Herta Schwätzig and Kordula Völker, or the ensembles Extra 2 and Mamma Grappa, appeared regularly as guests.⁴¹

Dance theatre productions (among others Fe Reichelt Tanztheater, Franca Schuller choreography) and performances (among others by Ruth Geiersberger or Ingrid Bach) were staged.⁴²

Literature (selection)

In 1995 the Frauenkulturhaus held the panel discussion on the theme Lust ohne Grenzen? Grenzen der Lust. Sex in Frauenbüchern with Constanze Ohms (Orlanda Verlag), Margit Hahn (Wiener Frauenverlag), Birgit Scheuch (Verlag Krug und Schadenberg), Anke Schäfer (Feministischer Buchverlag), Andrea Thamm (LIBS Frankfurt am Main). The event took place in cooperation with the Werbeverband deutschsprachiger Frauenbuchverlage.⁴³

In 1997, on the occasion of the Frankfurt Book Fair, the sex researcher Shere Hite presented her new publication Wie Frauen Frauen sehen.⁴⁴

Cooperations, networking, cultural-policy events

From 1991 until it ceased publication in 1992, the editorial office of the Frankfurter Frauenblatt worked at the Frauenkulturhaus.
1993: Under the title Starke Frauen in der Politik oder: Nur gemeinsam sind wir stark, Christa Karras, state secretary in the Lower Saxony women’s ministry, and Brigitte Sellach (Die Grünen, Frankfurt am Main) discussed concepts of women’s policy.⁴⁵
1994: Elisabeth Koch (professor of civil law and European legal history, University of Jena), Piyali Dutta (Hessian Ministry for Women, Labour and Social Affairs) and Helga Ebert (overall women’s commissioner of the City of Frankfurt am Main) took part in the event on the Hessian Equal Rights Act.⁴⁶ As part of the celebrations of the 1,200th anniversary of the City of Frankfurt am Main, the closing event of the lecture series Öffentliches Wirken von Frauen in zwölf Jahrhunderten took place; participants included Micha Brumlik (Die Grünen), Ute Gerhard (professor of women’s studies, University of Frankfurt am Main) and Klaus Sturmfels (cultural policy spokesman of the SPD parliamentary group in the Römer).⁴⁷
1995: The conference Die Hälfte des Himmels ist manchmal die Hölle was held in preparation for the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing. Li Xiaojiang (professor, Zhengzhou University) and Gudula Linck (professor, University of Kiel) spoke on the situation of women in China. Co-organisers were the women’s studies unit of the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Frankfurt am Main, the Gesellschaft für Kulturaustausch mit Asien Drachenbrücke and the NGO women’s forum.⁴⁸ Among those attending the reception given by the Deutscher Verband Berufstätiger Frauen for Ruth Dörrbecker, chair of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Frankfurter Frauenverbände, were mayor Andreas von Schoeler and women’s affairs head of department Margarethe Nimsch.⁴⁹
1996: The office Finanzberatung für Frauen (Financial Advice for Women), formerly based at the Frauenkulturhaus, presented the guide Frauen sichern ihre Zukunft on insurance and investments (led by Lisa Lange, Beate Prass, Amanda Davis).⁵⁰

Organisation and budget

The sponsoring association of the Frauenkulturhaus was the association Frauenkulturinitiative e.V.

The Frauenkulturhaus was funded through institutional support (rental costs), a loan guarantee for conversion works from the Women’s Department of the City of Frankfurt am Main, and through project-related grants from the State of Hesse (socio-culture, Künstlerinnenbüro). Its own resources were generated through admission fees, membership fees and the letting of production and office space.⁵¹

In 1994/1995 the organisational team worked with one full-time management post, three job-creation-scheme posts financed by the employment office, the Women’s Department, the Frauenkulturhaus and the Gemeinnützige Frauenbeschäftigungsgesellschaft gGmbH (GFFB) (of these, two posts in event management and one in business administration), one fee-based post (artistic programme, Künstlerinnenbüro, public relations) and volunteer staff.⁵²

Association and board members, staff and others

Board: Brigitte Schäfer, Julia Ostrowicki (until 1997), Irmgard Ostrowicki-Göbel (until 1997), Ursula Hillmann (from 1997)⁵³

Members and staff: Heike Gräler, Karin Görner (artistic exhibition programme, Künstlerinnenbüro, press work),⁵⁴ Angelika Prinz, (event management), Anne Breick (music workshop, later Frauen-Musik-Büro, Kick la Luna),⁵⁵ Petra Krah (event management)

Closure and further measures to promote women in the art and culture sector

In 1998 the Frauenkulturhaus was closed following cuts in funding in the preceding years and because of financial deficits in its operating budget.⁵⁶⁵⁷⁵⁸⁵⁹⁶⁰

The concept proposal by the association Art House (initiators Marion Kuchenbrod, Dietburg Spohr) for an alternative use of the existing infrastructure for the Frankfurt cultural scene was rejected by the city executive.⁶¹⁶²

In 1998/1999 the city executive of Frankfurt am Main commissioned a new concept for promoting equal opportunities for women in the art and culture sector. At the invitation of the Women’s Department, around 70 Frankfurt experts from the fields of theatre, film, visual arts, new media, literature, cabaret, music and urban history thereupon analysed the situation and the prospects for municipal cultural and women’s policy. The findings and proposals for action from the hearing were published in the documentation Die Weiberwirtschaft. Frauen in Kunst und Kultur ⁶³.

In 1999, with the city executive resolution Für einen neuen Aufschwung in der Frauenpolitik, a fundamentally revised resolution was adopted.⁶⁴ After 10 years of institutional women’s cultural policy in Frankfurt am Main, a changed cultural concept was drawn up which no longer provided for institutional funding but relied instead on differentiated individual funding by genre and on a project-related basis. In future, the promotion of women in the cultural sector was also to be financed by the Women’s Department and other departments responsible for the respective subject areas.⁶⁵⁶⁶

After the closure of the Frauenkulturhaus Frankfurt, its collection was taken into the women artists’ archive Bildwechsel. Kultur- und Medienzentrum für Frauen e. V., Hamburg, in 1999. The collection comprises texts, programmes, and photographic, video and audio material from 1987 to 1998 relating to the activities and events of the Frauenkulturhaus and the Frauenkulturinitiative e. V.⁶⁷

Publications

Vogt, Barbara/Schäfer, Brigitte (1993): Das Frauenkulturhaus Frankfurt. In: Hessischer Heimatbund e. V. (ed.): Hessische Heimat. Zeitschrift für Kultur und Denkmalpflege, 43(3), pp. 117–118.
Die Frauen vom Frauenkulturhaus (1992): Das Frauenkulturhaus steht für … In: Bütfering, Elisabeth/Hillmann, Ursula/Jung, Marie Luise/Stück, Susanne/Wennagel, Annegret/WEIBH e. V. (ed.): FrauenStadtbuch Frankfurt. Frankfurt/M.: AZ-Verlag, pp. 148–149.
Hillmann, Ursula (1989): Ein Frauenkulturhaus in Frankfurt. In: Frankfurter Frauenblatt, no. 3, May/June, pp. 34–35.
n. a. (1987): Projekt Frauenkulturhaus Frankfurt. In: Brinkmann to Broxten, Eva/Fuchs, Claudia/Kiltz, Elke/Schäfer, Brigitte/Sellach, Brigitte in cooperation with WEIBH V. (ed.) (1987): Ohne Netz und doppelten Boden: Frauenprojekte & Frauenpolitik in Hessen. Frankfurt/M.: Zypresse Druck, pp. 74–76.
Bestandsaufnahme 1993/94. Publication accompanying the exhibition of the same name, 25.11.1994–25.2.1995. Frauenkulturhaus (ed.), Frankfurt/M., Münsterschwarzach Abtei 1994.